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Back The Sorority Murder Save as PDF
Chapters (61)
  1. Cover
  2. Praise
  3. Dedication
  4. One
  5. Two
  6. Three
  7. Four
  8. Five
  9. From the Missing Journal of Candace Swain
  10. Six
  11. Seven
  12. Eight
  13. Nine
  14. Ten
  15. Eleven
  16. Twelve
  17. From the Missing Journal of Candace Swain
  18. Thirteen
  19. Fourteen
  20. Fifteen
  21. From the Missing Journal of Candace Swain
  22. Sixteen
  23. Seventeen
  24. Eighteen
  25. Nineteen
  26. Twenty
  27. Twenty-One
  28. From the Missing Journal of Candace Swain
  29. Twenty-Two
  30. Twenty-Three
  31. Twenty-Four
  32. Twenty-Five
  33. Twenty-Six
  34. Twenty-Seven
  35. Twenty-Eight
  36. Twenty-Nine
  37. Thirty
  38. Thirty-One
  39. Thirty-Two
  40. Thirty-Three
  41. Thirty-Four
  42. From the Missing Journal of Candace Swain
  43. Thirty-Five
  44. Thirty-Six
  45. Thirty-Seven
  46. Thirty-Eight
  47. From the Journal of Candace Swain
  48. Thirty-Nine
  49. Forty
  50. Forty-One
  51. Forty-Two
  52. Forty-Three
  53. Forty-Four
  54. Forty-Five
  55. Forty-Six
  56. Forty-Seven
  57. Letter Found in the Journal of Candace Swain
  58. Forty-Eight
  59. Acknowledgments
  60. Booklist
  61. Excerpt

Regan continued. “We lead with the Taylor James overdose. An article about it was published in the paper. It’s brief, but we can start there. I’ll call the sheriff’s office, see if the Merritt name can get us more information. We shouldn’t connect it directly to Candace or posit any theories about murder or suicide. I’m thinking something like how violence impacts people in different ways. How Taylor, Candace’s good friend, former roommate, changed after Candace was killed, how she started doing drugs, barely passed her classes—violence affects more than the victim.”

Lucas didn’t say anything, but a cloud crossed his face, and his eyes watered.

“You okay?” she asked.

“Fine. Sorry. Just thinking.”

Come on, Lucas. I know you’re hiding something... What is it?

“Lucas, did you lose someone?”

He shook his head. “I didn’t, not really, but my high-school girlfriend did. When we were sophomores in high school, her older sister went missing while driving back from college. They found her car but not her body. Her family doesn’t know what happened to her.”

“Let me guess. She was here, at NAU.”

He nodded.

“Why didn’t you tell me that at the beginning?” It made so much sense now why he was borderline obsessed with Candace Swain’s disappearance. It was very similar to his sweetheart’s sister.

“I didn’t think it was important.”

“Everything is important.”

But he didn’t say anything more about it. “We should go,” he said. “It’s nearly six.”

Thirty-Three

Five minutes into Lucas’s recap at the start of the podcast, Lizzy sent him a text that they had more than one thousand people streaming the show, more than twice as many as they had the last episode. They had also more than tripled the number of podcast subscribers.

After repeating the known facts of Candace’s murder, Lucas said, “Tragedy struck the Sigma Rho sorority again this week. Taylor James, Candace’s onetime roommate and sorority sister, died of an apparent drug overdose late Wednesday night.” Lucas read the press report of Taylor’s death, which didn’t give much detail. “Regan, when we were talking earlier, you said that violence creates more than one victim. Can you expand on that?”

“Whenever someone is killed, they are not the only victim. Candace was a sister—to Chrissy Swain as well as to the Sigma Rho sorority. She was a daughter, a friend, a student, a colleague. When Candace was killed, others were hurt—grieving, in pain, unable to find solace that justice was served because Candace’s killer was never caught.